Tagged: Conservation Beat

Governor's Susana Martinez's declaration makes it easier for communities, farmers and ranchers to secure federal funding.    It also kicks into action the New Mexico Drought Task Force headed by the State Engineer.  The panel is to make recommendations on how to mitigate problems that stem from persistent drought.

State officials from a variety of agencies gathered this morning to talk about New Mexico’s drought and its effect on recreation this summer.  State Engineer Scott Verhines took a moment after the conference to talk about the bigger picture with KUNM’s Sidsel Overgaard .

Next week the state Oil Conservation Commission will take up consideration of New Mexico’s pit rule, a measure governing the disposal of waste from oil and gas drilling. 

When adopted in 2008, the pit rule was hailed by environmentalists as one of the strictest standards in the nation…and condemned by the oil and gas industry as unnecessarily burdensome. 

Starting Monday, the three-member OCC will begin a week-long set of hearings to consider the industry’s administrative appeals. 

Despite the fact that cesspools have been illegal in New Mexico for almost 40 years, thousands of homeowners still use them to dispose of raw sewage…and the state wants that to stop.

For the next five months, the New Mexico Environment Department is providing amnesty to residents who contact the agency to have their cesspools eliminated and replaced with modern septic systems.

Dennis McQuillan with the state’s Liquid Waste Program says not only do cesspools pollute the groundwater…they’re dangerous.

As part of a new $4 million US Department of Agriculture initiative, New Mexico will get about $35-thousand dollars to help make farmers market produce available to food stamp recipients. 

About half of New Mexico’s 60-plus farmers markets already accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP benefits.  But Denise Miller with the New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association says the new grant will hopefully bring needed wireless technology to all the rest. 

In a move environmental groups call "unprecedented," the Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering a decades-old permit for a proposed uranium mine near Church Rock. 

The number of oil and gas wells in New Mexico is on the rise due to higher demand for domestic production, but the number of federal inspectors qualified to watch over them remains at less than 100.  

According to a report in the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Bureau of Land Management and the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division oversee about 100,000 wells, each of which is inspected an average of once every three years.

New Mexicans are already able to get information about wildfires on the web or via Twitter.  But State Forestry officials say they're hoping to reach a wider audience with a new email alert system.  Forestry spokesman Dan Ware says the emails will contain a host of information that can't be crammed into a 140 character tweet, including when the fire started, the cause, and a description o

A new report estimates recreational activity along the Colorado River and its tributaries contributes about $17 billion in direct spending per year.  According to the report:

If recreation associated with the Colorado River and it tributaries was a company, the jobs it
supports would make it the 19th largest employer on the Fortune 500.

New Mexico's largest electric utility, the state's transmission authority and Power Network New Mexico have filed a request with federal regulators that would clear the way for a new transmission line to funnel solar- and wind-generated power to western markets.

The Renewable Energy Transmission Authority and Power Network New Mexico are developing the $350 million project.

In a statement released Thursday, the Office of the State Engineer says it will begin sending letters to irrigators in southern New Mexico who are already in danger of using more than their share of groundwater for the year. 

Thursday morning on the KUNM Call-In Show we'll be talking about what's being done to clean up the estimated eight million gallons of fuel that leaked from an underground pipe at Kirtland Air Force Base over the course of decades.  Officials tracking the flow of the fuel and dissolved pollutants say no contamination has reached Albuquerque's drinking water wells.  And they say they are working as fast as possible to clean the spill before that happens.

While electric utilities look ahead to future renewable energy mandates, a coalition of wind energy companies and conservation groups has released new guidelines that should make wind development easier in New Mexico. 

The best management practices, drafted by groups like Audubon New Mexico and Interwest Energy Alliance, are designed to ensure the safety of animals like raptors, bats, and lesser prairie chickens while allowing for the growth of wind farms.

New Mexico’s largest electric utility says even though it has not yet met a two-year old renewable energy requirement…it is on track to meet future goals. 

Under the state’s renewable portfolio standard, investor-owned utilities were supposed to get ten percent of their electricity from clean energy sources by 2010.  Of the state’s three such utilities, PNM is the only one not currently meeting that mandate.  The target jumps to 15 percent in 2015.

 The House of Representatives has passed a bill, HR 491, that would add about 900 acres to the northern end of the Cibola National Forest.  The Crest of Montezuma, which forms the backdrop to the village of Placitas, is currently controlled by the Bureau of Land Management.  The bill was sponsored by Representative Martin Heinrich, who says, aside from being visually stunning, the parcel is also an important wildlife corridor.